heathervescent

Let's Keep Blogging

I am writing to you from my bed, back completely flat, as I recover from my second knee replacement this year. Too bad I was not blogging when I recovered from #1, earlier this year. I had so many interesting physical sensations. A few years ago, I discovered I am highly sensitive. It was no surprise, people have been telling me I was too sensitive my entire life. (And my reply that people are too selfish and barbaric.) This lead to a time in my life of untraining my sensitivity, and training myself to be ruthlessly selfish and think only about myself. 

Anyway, I digress, but I can do that on my blog. Let's get back to the nerve sensations in my knee. Pain is such an interesting thing. For me, I always thought of pain as this torn muscle pain, or cut finger bleeding pain. Or stub your toe or crush your finger pain. But then there is nerve pain. I've always struggled categorizing nerve pain as pain. It's not nothing, but it not like stubbing your toe, hot and red and a flash. Nerve pain is a sensation, and for someone who is highly sensitivity, too much sensation can be overwhelming, but it's not necessarily pain.

I had all these great names for the nerve pain last time, let's see if I can remember them. There was the lightening bolt flashes, like electricity scattering across the sky, a metaphor for my knee/leg area. There was this rolling, dull pain, that I compared to the rollingness of a rolling style earthquake. That rollingness like nausea, with the pain just present, maybe increasing in intensity, but a dull, soft cottony rolling pain. 

Let's see, right now, I have a deep pain in my right leg coming from a particularily tight part of my side knee area. There are subtle soft sharp threads now and then. Yesterday there was this deep hot spicy pain, coming deep inside my knee. Almost like I couldn't feel it, or I felt it far away behind a red curtain, but yet, that hot spicy deeply red pain was there. (That's when I was doing PT!)

Earlier today I forgot for a split second I had had knee surgery and my body/legs tried to grab my pillow together and bring it up to myself, only to whack myself awake with a sharpe hot green-gray pain that reminded me that, yes, less than a week ago you had that leg opened up, hacked a bit off and jammed in some augmented pieces.

Yup, this leg's recovery is easier than the previous one, but that doesn't make it easy by any means.

You know what else is not easy. Trust. I keep seeing posts from my identity colleagues lamenting the loss of trust. And that's why they do all these identity solutions that are trust less. I think they are all on the wrong path. And I want to write some things around this, so I'm collecting my thoughts, but first off, trust can not be solved by technology. Lack of trust (and believe me, I have lot of trust issues) has to do with people. There are things you can do to regain that trust, but also, there's a blog post on here from the Heather/Gloria days, a walk with Moki on Mt Washington, that talks about trust is a choice.

You chose to trust someone. They stab you in the back and you get hurt, and you get angry. You don't trust those people or the system that created them. It's like this piece I've wanted to write for years, how the private sector has a lot to learn from government. Fucking selfish private sector.

I've got so many ideas to write, but who cares? The nihilistic and pointless point of view. Then let's bring in the contradictory view, The Chicken John quote, about living in the world you want to live in. What is the world I want to live in? And what can I do now to create a delusion of that reality now?

Backburner Projects

The second snow of the season is coming down, I made a big pot of chicken barley veggie soup and I'm listening to Sheila Chandra's excellent drone album while I work on some projects. Over the past month or so, I've returned to several projects that went on the back burner in Q1 2020. 

I had reminded myself of my 2020 plan -- I had a war chest and some new entrepreneurial offers. But after a few months of the pandemic, and all those dreams (along with the lack of return phone calls) were shuttered. Two years of pandemic later and the entrepreneurial spirit in me was squeezed out. I wanted more structure, stability and to get paid for all the hidden things I do that is part of the job of being your own boss. So I got some clients. And my entrepreneurial projects ended went on the back burner.

You know what is interesting? These projects are coming off the back burner. It helps to have the space on the front burners too.

It's like I might be recovering from the pandemic interrupt. When I revisit these projects, they are still so fresh and relevant. And look at all this work I previously did on them. This gives me fresh energy for new projects too. For example, I banged out a first draft of a book proposal over the course of a few days. I don't know where these will go. For now, I am keeping myself busy, trying things out and paying it forward sharing what I know. 

Different dogs

It's strange to think that this blog so far has only included the adventures of one of my dogs. Mr Dog was around for most of this blog, and even still kicking around strong when I paused my writing in 2018. But in the subsequent time between that last 2018 post and my restarting in 2023, I have had so much adventures with new dogs. 

Mr Dog helped transition me to living full time at the dome in fall is 2018. While I sold it to myself as a temporary writing sabbatical between paid contracts, I found the quietude and solitude helpful for my writing. For the first few months, I co-wrote with a well known name in the crypto space. It fizzled out, when I got tired of keeping us accountable. The work we did write together is pretty fantastic - if out of date. Maybe I will find a way to publish some of it.

Anyway Mr. Dog kept me company during this Los Angeles exit, and almost immediately fell ill and went on his definitive journey off into infinity or emptiness. There were some pretty magical moment there with the Golden Goddess and a red dog with white paws. That would have been classic writing material for this blog, maybe I'll revisit those stories, those desert roads, that golden light.

Life was interesting with no dog to ground me. I barely lasted a few months before I took on fostering for the same rescue org that Mr Dog came from. Fostering was a practice in detachment, care, compassion. I had three fosters - the last one failed. These fosters were so raw when they came to me. Shell shocked and traumatized. Often from the streets or a shelter or a bad situation. I took these fragile pups in, gave them love and structure before taking them to their forever homes. My last foster, Archibald, a blind dog with a real sob story, became a failure when I fell in love with him one night snuggling down while watching Game of Thrones over the holidays.

A year later, I wanted a friend for Archibald, so Shoogs came into our life, a month just after the pandemic lockdown happened. Pandemic lockdown was me, and these dogs on my small acreage on the Mojave-Colorado desert borders. It was great, being a hermit lady with two dogs, my best friends the planets that rose in the night sky. I had a war chest I had planned to use to launch my latest entrepreneurial endeavor, which ended up keeping me safe and secure through 2+ years of the pandemic. My pups barely lasted through the pandemic as well. They were both well in their prime when they came into my care, and Arch left me suddenly one morning.

Shoogs stayed on for another year or so, traveling cross country to the East Coast, and then up and down the West Coast, eventually succumbing to her ills in the desert. Like all three my dogs. Mr. Dog. Archibald. Shoogs. Their collars, their ashes, photos, drawings and paintings by my dear friend Liz, who even put the golden light around Mr. Dog. 

Fast forward to today. Two more dogs! Pebbles came into our lives in June, after a break of a year or so. And right before all the puzzle pieces fell into place for our Colorado place. And I found Joey in the first week were were in our new home. He was being fostered in the weird, small, obscure town where I went to college. Believe me, you've never heard of it. It's not the first time I've had two dogs, but it's the first time I've had two younger, energetic dogs.

One thing about all these dogs, they are Boston Terriers. Mr. Dog was my first Boston Terrier. I didn't know the breed prior. It was a requirement of my partner at the time. Turns out, he wasn't wrong. The Boston Terrier is a perfect dog for me. I love their formal wear of a black and white tuxedo. They can be extremely intelligent. (I think Pebbles is the most intelligent one I've had), silly, loyal, energetic, snuggly, and chompy in the right ways IMO. They are strong, have strong jaws, have such personality, and a distinctive face. I've enjoyed the 7 bostons that I've fostered and rescued. 

So now, I'm writing on the ole blog again. With different dogs.

 

This is just to say

It has been a long dry spell of no blog posts on the old blog. How the internet has changed since 2018. Maybe I will dusty off my morning coffee-writing ritual and write about whatever I feel like it. It did feel a bit constraining to turn this blog into my professional expression. 

I've done a lot in cybersecurity the past 5 years. Written some books. Writing some more. Done some good work. Worked with some nice (and not so nice) people. You know, the older I get, the more I want to work with nice people, who are self-aware. I know it's a hard ask. Most everyone is figuring out how to get all the things they want in life - and many have no qualms about stepping on whomever they need to to get those things.

To make money with integrity and ethics is just adding another level of difficulty to surviving - because it seems near impossible to make a living in a way that doesn't impoverish others. So what to do? I tried the hermit life for a few years, but you know what, the "real world" with all its very human problems was exactly the same when I re-visited it. 

Anyway, where do I go from here? The net is vast and infinite. 

Expanding Emotional Capacity

I began studying emotions in earnest after my mom died in October of 2012. Up to that point, I thought emotions were messy, illogical and got in the way. I pushed mine down as much as I could. I remember explicitly shutting them off one night when I was 16. I couldn't continue with the intense emotional pain in my life. I could not let myself be hurt anymore. Since I couldn't change much in my life then, I changed myself, eliminating my emotions.

It didn't work. My emotions would come back up anyway - usually in a volcano of expression. Most of the time I managed this privately, but not always.

I have always been criticized for being "too emotional." I hated that criticism. I hated being emotional. I hated myself. Having these problematic emotions. I learned - especially in business - emotions were bad. Except for positive emotions - like passion for the product - that was desired. But don't you dare show a negative emotion.

But, Emotion is Human.

Bruce Schneier said, at his 2015 SxSW talk, "When we interact with machines, data is created." I'd go so far as to say, when anything interacts with a machine, including other machines, data is created. But what happens when you interact with humans?

"When you interact with humans, emotions are created." -moi

It in the year after my mom's death, decades of fermented emotions uncorked. Like a slow hiss of escaping carbonated liquid, they foamed to the top and coagulated in the air of 2013 and 2014. Facing these decades of rawness, I, dove deep into the fetid effervescence. 

It's hard to believe it's 2015 sometimes. Those months from October 2012 till March 2013 burn darkly - fresher than reality.

Earlier this year I interviewed Brenda Laurel. At the end of our two hour conversation she said something I can't stop thinking about. I'll paraphrase. You can listen to her words directly in a few weeks on our upcoming podcast.

"People think technology is the other. But technology is people!" -Brenda Laurel

She goes on to explain that technology is not separate from ourselves, but another aspect. To distinguish it as "the other" is to deny it is part of us.

I was reminded of this the other day, when I was on the phone to change my phone plan. Being frustrated by the robotic voice phone chain. I took a deep breath. This was not a robot. This was a human aspect - the technology so limited, it required me to modify myself.

How much more pleasant it was to interact with the human man through the technology. If I pulled back perspective, I was talking to myself, helping myself - with technology and other humans. It was kind of amazing!

Technology today lacks emotional touch points. That will change. It is already changing. It's this change that drives my interest in wearable technology - some of the most intimate technology we have available to us today. And it's why I did an interview series on the Future of Wearables. 

As technology becomes better at emotional interactions, we humans will expand our emotional capacity. We've already augmented our logical intelligence. Emotions are next.

2013: A Year in Review

It seems like not long ago I was writing my 2012 review in a hotel room in Southern Utah.

When I reflect on where I was a year ago, it's like a different world. I was in Portland. I had just packed up my mom's house and condo. We had held her funeral and I gave an Eulogy. I had just got into her car and drove to Montana. I had no idea where my life was going. It seemed like everything had or was breaking down. You only live once, so I surrendered to my unfolding life. 

2013 was a year a shifts and changes. 

The elephant in the room was grieving for my mother, the closure of her estate and the reintegration of myself after her death, which included a priority shift from my career uber alles into healthy consciously created relationships. There was also the case of my broken heart. 2013 was the birth of my most ambitious project to date: The Future of Money TV Series.

• On my birthday in January, I bought a Geodesic Dome in the Mojave Desert.

 

• It was also the month I voiced my idea to make a future related TV series to the person who would become my distributor partner.
• In Feb, I finally ended my longest LTR, and began this grieving/healing process. Ugh.
• I changed my diet and began my love of reformer based pilates.
• I launched the 3rd year of my Future of Transactions Survey.
• In March, I spoke at TedxZwolle and visited amazing Amsterdam.

 

• Spring was spent working on the dome, rebuilding friendships, reformatting my body/brain and developing the series.
• Summer was lots of conference travel, great friends, love. I went to Orlando, Chicago, San Francisco, Palm Springs, Portland and Seattle.
• I organized the Association of Professional Futurist's Professional Development Day, where we looked at Casual Layered Analysis and created a mapping of the history of futurist roles. It was very successful.

• I spoke twice at the World Future Society's conference. A Possibility Tour. The Human Problem. Both well received talks.
• My paper, The Human Problem, won 1st place.
• I kicked off a new research project, The Future of Intimacy, with colleagues from OCAD. We'll be presenting this work at SXSW 2014. 
• The Fall was the unveiling of the Future of Money TV Series, successfully raising $37k on Kickstarter and garnering lots of press in the process.
• And I finally got the dome ready for unforgettable experiences in the Mojave.
• I launched my 3rd Bitcoin survey.
• And I'm heads down on production and preparation for Q1 2014.
• With plans to write a book. Whew!

Not too shabby of a year, especially considering the circumstances.

I'm leaving 2013 a healthier person, physically and emotionally. I have amazing friends I love, who love me. Great collaborators. And great projects that I believe will culturally change the world and make it a better place. I've successfully recovered/reintegrated the shocks from 2012 and 2013. I'm a different person, but I'm also still the same heathervescent!

I'm exiting 2013 in the best shape of my life - personally, professionally, physically.

So 2014... the newly evolved heathervescent is finally ready to start my life's work...

New Blogs

This month I lauched two new blogs.

As part of my warm-up writing and increasing my attention on things I love, I started daily blogging: Love Letters from Vescent.

I started a second blog, Deep Links, which will hold posts written like many under the Introspection category (the majority of the posts on this blog are in this category).

Update: I launced a new site for my Mojave Desert Geodesic Dome. Coming to Southern California? Want to experience the magic of the Mojave Desert and Joshua Tree National Park? Experience the Sharing Economy and stay in the Dome! 

If you like this kind of writing, go check them out.

Nostalgic in the Present

I drive  Mom's Jag North though the San Joaquin. It rides like a dream and I feel like I am on the Disneyland Monorail. Mr Dog is my co-pilot. We slide into Alameda as the sun sets across the bay. The dark hills are silhouetted against the fiery orange sky. I remember so many of these sunsets from my Berkeley porch. Previous chapters of my life. 

Alameda is beautiful place. Tree lined streets. Gorgeous houses. It reminds me of days past. There are no new shiny metal condos. I walk my dog in the cool mornings and dream of living here. Dream of what life could be like living here. I indulge in this fantasy. I indulge in returning to this metropolitan area.

I'm up here for the wedding of one of my best friends. Someone who had a profound impact on my life, many times. We met through work, we became friends through divorce, health and work challenges and celebrated good times with lots of sushi. I think of all these things as I see her, Rosie, beautiful in her white dress, hair pin curled with pearls. They have been such a comfort, such a friend to me. It's an honor to be here with them, to celebrate and witness their marriage. The ceremony and vows are perfect.

I can't help but be a little sad. My heart is still broken. I have dreams of my own romance. My awesome partner. Visions of a life. I try to enjoy these times alone. Doing whatever I want. Reinventing myself. But I miss the companionship. I feel this absence even as I joyously witness the union of two great friends. I hold space for their dreams and wish them everything they desire.

These circle of friends. Many know me pre-Heathervescent. People who made such an impact in my life. Taking chances on me. Believing in me. Mentoring me. Befriending me. These people I have known for more than 15 years.... connected by the core values we share. 

It feels great to have these longtime friendships. To revisit our antics of the past. To catch up on current projects. Under it all, friendship and love. 

That's what I'm learning this year, love really is the only thing that matters. The tender thread weaving us together. I strengthen my thread and weave it widely in the world. 

Being in the Present

It's morning. I'm sitting in my sun porch, drinking coffee. The dog is sleeping nearby. The windows are open and I breath the sweet, moist California air. I feel the heat under the moist cool. I know today will be hot. 

I'm listening to my ambient/Boards of Canada station. It mixes well with the noises from the neighborhood. Gates opening. Birds. Weed wackers. The jingle of dog tags on their morning walks. I look out the window at my favorite plants. The bush with the petit purple flowers. The spring green of my Brugmansia leaves. The tall stalks of my sun flowers. Deep green of Rosemary. Fecund fruit trees. Spiky palm leaves and soft willowly Jacarandas, dropping their carpet of fragrant sweet purple blooms. 

I've got that feeling again. The softness in my heart. Content in the present moment. To accept what comes. I think of my friends. So many that I love. The various connections. These moments I share in present space, expanding the love I have for them. Connecting over our love of shoes or film  making or SciFi or years of friendship and often over long distances through the magic of technology and text messages and twitter. I am thankful for them. I work to be a better friend. To be there for them. And when I am, when I give, I feel so much return. 

This present moment, this bliss, this is what I try to give attention to. Awareness and enjoyment of the moment.

Momentary Happiness

I've threaded my way through Beverly Hills, raced a Telsa, reaching up to 70 mph on Sunset. I zip through the construction by the 405 and find myself a spot in the parking garage. I wait for the tram and then ride up the mountain, looking at traffic on the 405, the Ocean beyond Santa Monica and Venice. I disembark. I'm early. I find a cafe table in the shade. At first I fuck around with my phone. Then I decide to be present.

I sit there. I breathe. I watch people taking pictures. (I stop myself from tweeting snarky comments.) I lean back in the chair, my feet propped up on another chair, close my eyes, arms behind my head, breathing. The breeze comes. Caressing my face, my hair, finding its way into my lungs through my nostrils. Utterly luxurious, pleasurable. I exhale. Only to inhale another magnificent breath, a part of the wind, which continues to caress my skin, tease my hair. I'm in heaven.

I am calm. Chemicals flood my brain. And then I feel it. The Happiness. With each breath it sustains and I revel in the momentary feeling.

Calm with the Challenge

These luxurious mornings. Up early, thanks to the #globalnow brain. I awake. Morning coffee ritual. I grind the beans today, the ritual changed due to mispurchasing whole beans. It keeps me aware.

I walk the dog. The Jacaranda purple above and below me. I inhale deeply of the moist air. Count to six. Exhale. Calm. Birds singing, chirping, tweeting. I walk among, through. The familiar dive bomb whir of the Hummingbirds. Stopping to smell the roses, admire the flourishing greenery of neighbor gardens. 

Today, I practice being calm. I've been running at a fast pace. I unconsciously felt I had to make up for lost time, the failures of the past year. Well, that's me choosing to focus on the things that went wrong. Analyzing how to avoid those situations in the present/future. I really have nothing to complain about. Life is about as dreamy as anyone could dream. So I'm gonna enjoy it for a while.

One thing through all this is the learning. Each morning I am greeted by a Joshua Tree painting in the bathroom. It reminds me of the challenge of finding my grounding while I flew around the world. It took a wider view to find that grounding, but I did. Even now, at home, not traveling the world, this view serves me. 

New challenges feel uncomfortable. Learning new skills, one sucks. That's why the zen mind, beginner mind is helpful. To release expectations. Put in the hours for the skill and one is bound to get better. Now is the time to stop with the dream and get down to action. The hearth is cold, chop wood. It's time for coffee, carry water.

Unraveling, Integrating

Note: I wrote this on December 13, 2012, with an update from tonight.

I always wondered what it would be like when one of my parents died. You see people fall apart when their parent dies. They become someone different after the experience. I watched it with my mom, when my grandmother died. I've seen it in other people. I knew it would happen to me, sooner than later. Mom told me she had cancer in 2009. I was at SXSW when she told me. I had a lot of road trip driving to think about what it meant.

I feel like I have a good relationship with death. It is a real friend of mine, whom I use on an almost daily basis to motivate myself to be conscious, aware, to be the person I want to be, to realize my potential. Death and I, we're old friends.

My grandmother, who was the most important person to me, died 7+ years ago. I dreamt her death days before she died. I felt her acquiesce into it through my dreams. I was in a strong personal place, and able to send her off well. When my grandfathers passed, again, I was in a place of power and strength, able to send them off on their next journeys. Back in August, I knew my mom was going this time. I was in denial of course. Until I saw her in Portland in October. The face of death does not lie.

And here I am, barely two months later. What's it been like, this experience of my mom dying? 

The last week she was alive, I experienced life very different from my usual way. (I usually live partially in the past, present and future. Past and future give information I frame and interpret in the present to act in the present.) With my mom, I lived 100% in the moment for several weeks. The past, the future, had no meaning. I knew they existed as two bookends, but they were abstract. I knew I would think about them, and visit them again, but in the moment, they did not matter. At one point I was sitting and talking with my mom and her friends and I described my experience like Burning Man, but I wasn't on drugs. There are a variety of experiences that force one to live in the moment. When I perform or put on events, I plan, but the moment comes and the planning ends, performance or execution happens in the present moment. Like last Saturday. The event begins, and you enter into present tense.

Re-entry to everyday life (moving between past and future) was difficult. Much like re-entry to life after a week in the desert. However this re-entry feels harder. There's an echo. And frankly, I continue to reference those moments of presence in October even now. 

Part of this is that I have the burden of unraveling another person's material life. I'm sharing this burden with my brother, so this helps; but we each have a lot more than usual going on. My own life is completely unstable - part of this was of my own doing as an attempt to stabilize for a different paradigm (a traveling all over the world for work paradigm).  

So that's the material challenge. But there's the emotional. 

I've got the usual cocktail of emotions around this, but on top of it all is a lot of anger. Anger at the timing. Anger at me being already in a reduced state due to other set-backs. This anger is compounded by a lack of trust.

Despite this impossible situation, I move forward. But often, each forward step is replied with a push backward.

-----

Fast forward to today - June 16, 2013. Mom's been gone for months. I've had time to get comfortable with her absence. The anger has subsided - as has my focus on unraveling her estate and dealing with the material world. 

Last Sunday, her ashes were scattered into the Pacific. With that act, a sense of relief, a weight I did not realize I felt, was lifted. 

Sure, I've had moments of missing her. Especially when all her furniture landed out at the Dome. I really wanted to call her to tell her all her stuff arrived. Of course, it's not a phone I could ever make to her alive. 

Like my grandmother and aunt who passed before her, I have her, their things. My writing desk was my Great Aunt's. Much of my furniture and cocktail ware was my grandmother's. These things comfort me. They trigger the positive memories of these women - a version of themself in the strange loop of my brain. 

I work now to integrate, discriminate, differentiate, decide what I want in my life, as part of my character. It's a strange piece of work; this braiding, dovetailing one life into another. I will be someone different and yet the same after it is done.

 

Swimming in the #globalnow

I did the math a few weeks ago. I spend 80-90% of my time alone. Solomente. Ok, my dog is with me most of this time, but I do not share physical space with another human. I am in my cocooned environment of my integrated life/work-space.

But am I really alone all of this time?

My past days have been session after session of Skype, Google Hangout, with phone calls, text messages, emails, back channel chat sessions, private network messages, monitoring activity of friends, interacting/responding with/to them. Passive and active interactions. Push and pull. I've had lots of face to face meetings too. Lots of time in the cocoon of my car, an autonomous node circulating around the physical grid.

Always connected. Always on. But not always monitoring. Not always streaming. Not always receiving. 

I awoke from my work trance yesterday, to realize I was in my living room. For hours I had been jacked into a virtual workspace with a variety of friend & colleagues. In reality, I was sitting on my couch, with Mr. Dog. But I was more than my physical. My virtual counterpart was elsewhere - in some liminal space. 

I am not alone in this space. I am connected to many brains. I extend my own brain tendrils, thoughts, actions, interactions and converse linearly and non-linearly. This nonphysical space becomes more and more real. Abundant for sharing and connection. 

So while I spend 80-90% of my time physically alone (with Mr. Dog), I am also a node in the #globalnow, connecting, re-connecting (and disconnecting) from this rich nonphysical space. 

Acolades

Last week I found out I won the 1st place prize from the Association of Professional Futurists for my paper on The Human Problem, where I unpacked and described how to solve every human created problem we have today. 

I wrote the paper when I was in a dark place. My mother had died a few weeks prior and I had lost faith in almost everything. I was suicidal, I was stuck in rainy Portland. The problems of the world meant nothing to me. Caring for nothing in myself or the world, with detachment and death by my side I plunged in. I rarely work half-assed. I'll share with you my opening paragraphs. 

When I sat down to think about the big questions or problems in the world I could not find a big problem worthy of attention. The questions and problems that keep my mind occupied are ones about human consciousness, awareness, identity and the evolution of these concepts. These are ideas that most people do not find to be particularly important. So I went on a quick search to find what other people thought were the big burning questions of our age. 

A survey of three lists of big wicked world problems resulted in the following common set of problems:

• Pollution
• Limited Resources (especially water and energy/oil)
• Various Crisis (Economic, Environmental)
• Global Warming
• Rising Population

I pondered on these big problems. They are truly problems we must face. But why were they problems in the first place. How did they become problems? It’s not like we, as a human species, set out to destroy the environment, use all the resources available and engage in destructive activities to bring about crisis. 

Writing this paper changed my attitude. I entered the writing process from a dark place. I finished with my optimism renewed. In the journey, I uncovered many societal beliefs and unserving myths. And the change has already begun. A ripple effect of positivity coming from a dark part of despair. Blossoming into the changing of the world.

 I am happy the paper won 1st place. Thank you Association of Professional Futurists!

Jacaranda Phase Shift

Nine years ago I took a chance. I followed my heart. I packed my things in my car. I stopped for one last coffee at my favorite cafe and I drove south. To dream a new dream. It's the time of year I remember that journey. I remember the start of the adventure. I remember trusting myself following the whisper of a dream. The destination opening a whole new playing field - my most beloved city, full of adventure and possibilities.

So much has happened. Many adventures. I've created, lived the life I wanted. I still do. 

I've been thinking a lot about the way I was at that time. The trust I had in the universe. The trust I had in myself. To take off in a direction, because that's where I felt the pull, because that's where the path with heart lead. Despite my logical brain saying, "that's crazy." Despite knowing where things would lead, where I would go, who I could become. Trusting strongly. Dreaming Big. Fishing for David Lynch's transcendental big fish.

It's phase shift time. A magical moment in my year where the realization of my dreams are closer to the surface. An invocation, an homage, a tribute to that day: Phase shift June 6. 

 

Dreams in the Dirt

This past week I returned to a hometown. It's not the place I was born. It's not the place I lived the longest. It's fairly unknown to the rest of the world. It's only one of the most defining places of myself, my identity, my history, my family. It is the remnants of a booming pioneer town on the Des Moines River in Southeast Iowa. The area is named after an Indian Warrior - Chief Wa Pe Lo. This town on the River is called Ottumwa. 

The land in Ottumwa and environs is fecund. In May it bursts with green leaves, fragil shoots, birds swooping, Canadian Geese resting in the many waterways and much much more. Deer bounding across the two laners. The humid air makes my heart blossom, open - amongst all this beauty, I have much pain.

I consciously chose my entry point. I flew into Kansas City - another city of personal meaning. I visited my childhood home in Gladstone - happy and unhappy times - before starting a route I knew (and hated) well. 35 N to 34 E. A route filled with anxiety, fear, unhappiness, unfulfilled dreams. But here I am, 20 years later, my own rental car, an independent, successful adult. I have to come to reclaim.

---

I drive the gravel roads out to Cliffland and park on the bridge. I remember when Lady Knight (my California Saab) and I were last here. I watch the muddy river flow. I don't think about jumping off this bridge. I watch the water flow. I think about this place. This area. Where I buried so much hurt. Where I talked to the person I am today. Where I inspired myself to be what I have become. Where I saved myself. Was my own hero. My own Gully Foyle.

There are two places I must visit. Old places. Places I promised a return decades ago. I park. I take my fancy Spanish Desigual purse filled with water and wear my hand made in Portugal Fluevogs and go into the forest. A forest that welcomes me back with lush Jack in the Pulpits, Iowa Wild Roses, wildflowers, lush green underbrush. The path is well worn. Muddy. I remember these paths, I remember my many solo hikes. These gentle and rolling forests saved my life so many times. They feed me today too.

Mossy rock. An opening in the earth. The sound of water over rock. Falling through air. The air is moist. Sunlight filters through the leaves. I stand in the silence. I connect to this place. I connect to the past. I connect to possible futures. These threads extend from my present moment - a place in this reality, my physical feet grounded in the cool depth of this cave.

---

I'm standing on the other side. I'm on top. Watching the water fall over the edge. I look to the path. I go deeper into the forest. The edge of a field. The top of a hill. I have found what I was looking for. 

The Cemetery has no name. The dates are well worn and date 100 years to the past. The earth has sunken in where the bodies have decayed. Peonies and Iris thrive and bloom. Calf high grass and miner's lettuce fills the sunny places. I stand in a circle of three sets of pine pairs. I talk to the dead. I ask them questions. Their answers come from the intertwined tree branches. Wind blows through them. I share these moments in time. In the stillness of this Pioneer Cemetery. I promise to return again this fall. 

---

These dreams in the dirt. This old hurt. These fears. Insecurities. Stirred up like the dust on the gravel roads I speed down. 

I think of these things: the fear, my desires with the core of my being, my failed attempts to create that reality. And I make a decision right here on this bridge over the Des Moines River. Where I stand. My unsatisfied, unfulfilled dreams/goals, my heart full of fear and uncertainty - I anchor these things to 1/4 of an analogy. Their corresponding comparison pair is where I was in my life 20 years ago with where I am now, what I have accomplished, who I have become. I see the bookend of the analogy - no fear, a promise, my heart content and overflowing with love. 

I plant the seeds for this dream, deep into the fecund Iowa dirt.

Living in the City

I'm driving my city streets. Visiting old neighborhoods. The Past. The Future. A building, branching, exploring the new, next to the known. It's great to be visiting these places. The neighborhoods change while staying the same. I'm different and the same too. 

I've missed living in my city.

--

Franklin to Hyperion to Atwater. Shakespeare Bridge. The secret backroads have turned into bicycle share streets. I put my top down, breathe the air and play loud music. The bridges, the hills. I've missed this commute. I've missed the east side - despite it's hipster gentrification. I remember the dreams I had over here. I remember living in the Future with Gloria. (The Future was a house on Future street.) A Future in the past. 

A party a few weeks ago took me back to the Future neighborhood. It was 3 blocks away. I almost wanted to visit it, walk up the hill to three stumps, the old dog walk route. But I've got a new future unfurling each present moment these days.

--

From one meeting to another I navigate the web of freeways. The 134 to the 2 to the 5 to the 10. Speeding further east. I weave between cars and take exit only off ramps that lead to no exit; but to another freeway. Each road leading to another, and another, and eventually the roads lead home.

Back in the glitter and grit of Hollywood, I drive Sunset Blvd. My life is a dream. A reality of my creation - sustained. Well-worn grooves: Fountain, La Cienga, Sunset, Santa Monica, La Brea, Melrose, Highland. My tires on these roads, my hand on the stick shift, breathing the air, the power in this place. Power I refine and return in abundant multi-fold. 

Building to Burn

Earlier today I was telling my friend Liz about building art for Burning Man. I described how the creation process feels different when you build something you know you will destroy. As we talked, I told her the story of building (and burning) my unicorns. I remembered how I felt building them. I sucked at building them. It was a lot of work and I had to try multiple times. I persevered. Only in the end to strap explosives and fireworks to the wood frames, douse in gasoline and give to the fire. 

I stopped a beat while telling her the story. This concept, building something up to burn it down, came down on my head like a frying pan epiphany. Of course! 

I was reminded of the paradox of peeling the onion when Shane Carruth did his director Q&A for Upstream Color. He asked, "When you peel back the layers of the onion, what do you have left?"

That's the problem with the onion. The obvious thought is that you are peeling each layer of the onion to get to the core of the onion. And there's another layer below it, until there is no more onion left to peel.

The answer is a simple, yet profound shift of thinking. The layers are the onion.

It comes down to Perception

I find it hard to believe in an objective truth - although I'm sure there's one out there. I don't know that I (or anyone) has the ability to see the objectivity (even math, physics and science comes from a perspective). Because we see things from where we are standing. That's our perspective. 

Two people can experience/see the same thing, and yet take away different experiences - based on their perception of the situation/person. It's true that perception can be changed. Shifted. In an instant. Like a lightswitch (my recent favorite metaphor).

You don't change what you're seeing/observing - you change how you see it. And this in turn changes the world - what is there - what is possible. So it's really up to you and your perception. And it doesn't necessarily really matter what you are perceiving. 

Amsterdam, Trust and the Tao

I've been in Europe for about a week now. I came over to talk at TedxZwolle. I'll talk about my fantastic experience there in another post soon, but for now, I want to write about a thing rolling around in my head.

My heart has been so broken. My trust broken too.  Felt like a big dream was not just impossible - but impossible not against the odds. It didn't work. I couldn't wrap my head around the possibility of impossible despite efforts. The will is exhausted and the way is blocked. There is nothing I can do, but acquiesce and move on with my life. A train pulling away from another, building speed, along a different track. 

So this hurt, I'm trying to make sense of. Trying to rebuild my life, my sense of self, my identity. Heal my wounds. Jettison baggage. The idea of having to date again is soul crushing. I don't think about it. This is my time. Time to do. Time to be.

This last week, flying to Europe, walking around London, Amsterdam, Zwolle. Taking the trains. Staying in people's homes, an occasional hotel. I put myself out there again. I decide, with the switch of a light switch, to trust again. These people have not hurt me. I can't hold the hurt others have given to me against them. So I trust. Why not?

Trust returns. Pain fades. Amazing opportunities, exciting syncronicities appear. My train gains speed.

To the point of epiphany today, here in this city. Where I am reminded I am the universe. If I am the universe, then my pain is the universe's pain. And the universe is also the "cure". So I walk these streets, gazing at the tall canal houses. I lose myself to re/create myself. I mirror the Tao to create the world I dream and give it back to the Tao. I enter the Tao, one with it as the Tao, and change it, by acquiescing to my dream, becoming the world. All I have to do is align with the Tao. And here in these city streets today, I have begun.

2012 Recap by numbers

I just finished my 2012 goals/practices recap. 2012 was a very ambitious year. I had 77 different goals and practices. 2012 was also the shittiest year of my life so far. I took a huge risk professionally and while I have a list of moderate successes (none included in the numbers below, those were a different set of goals), I endured trauma. One risk was leaving my stable ground of Los Angeles. I leveled up, but I didn't play the game by traditional rules. Adding insult to injury, I endured collateral damage at home. While regaining a small footing, the biggest blow came. It wasn't unexpected, and the timing wasn't the absolute worst; but it's not like I needed another thing to be angry about. Things got bad. Very bad. But then I remembered, I have nothing left to lose. So it's back to being who I am, and creating, living, dreaming and manifesting my life. As soon as I could, I went on the road to see the American Lands. The open road and the long timescale of earth's land masses calms me. Gives me perspective. I'm here in Utah, a tilted prehistoric lake, I am finally ready to put 2012 behind me.

But before I do, let's recap the numbers. I had 77 "goals" and "practices" in my yearly mindmap. Of those:

• 51% were Achieved (27%) or Practiced (24%)
• 16% are In Progress (and with positive upward trajectory)
• 10% were Interrupted
• 17% were Not Achieved 
• 6% were Not Applicable

Removing the interrupted and not applicable items, and considering the In Progress ones as successes, that's an 80% success rate. 80% of 64 items came to positive conclusions.

Not too bad.

Especially considering it being the year it was.

Thank you 2012. You gave me  the opportunity to learn lots of new things. You knocked me down and you landed multiple blows. But, I am stronger and wiser.

PDX Closings

It's the hardest part of the marathon. I'm past the mid-point, but do not see the finish line. 

This morning, I am in the center of chaos. A chaos of my making. A pre-requisite of the new order. It's not a choice. The path is often messy. Chaos does not scare me. Nor order. I pull both sets of strings.

Clothes are out of drawers, closets. Surfaces are covered with items to be sorted. To be distributed. A life unraveling. Threads of a story, unwoven, extracted, to be threaded into other stories, lives. Some known, some unknown.

There is no end. There is no beginning. Except there are.  Bookends.

And while all this ending/beginning is occurring in this space, all around me is the world. Cars driving across the bridge. A ship being built. The river keeps flowing. Eating. Sleeping. Breathing. 

It's more chopping wood, carrying water.

A 10 to the 9

I'm at 30k feet. Looking at the window. For some reason, my mood always lifts when I'm in an airplane. It's the traveling I guess. Anyway, I'm starting down at the snow capped Sierras, Tahoe, Mono Lake, then Pyramid. Farther east I know is the playa. Then it's the cascades.

But my mind is elsewhere.

I'm thinking about Saturday. Santacon. I look at the pictures. I see things I missed. I was behind the scenes a lot this year. I feel like I missed out. At least I did the mosh pit. That was a sight, Santa Punk Band, Santa Mosh Pit. And the teenage punk Heather couldn't hold back. I jumped right in. I didn't stop the person lighting fire on the dancefloor. I just thought, damn, we're going to get kicked out.

I take a lot of shit for that event. Fucking anti-authority trolls. It used to irritate me. Now, it's a badge of honor.  They don't get it. I accept them into my integral paradigm. Raging against me as an authority figure is a fucking joke. These are my misfit children. They have to hate me.

Who was it that inspired this in me? Easy answer: Patron Saint Cacophony: Michael Mikel aka Danger Ranger. 

I am one of his 10 to the 9. 

10 to the 9 is a phrase Singularity University uses to talk about impacting 1 billion people. That sounds like a daunting task, but it's not really.You have to impact 10 people, who each impact 10 more people out to 9 exponential powers.

I'm thinking about the many emails I get each year; thinking about the photos (and experiences I personally missed) this year. I'm wondering if the guy sitting next to me was there wearing a Santa suit. Then I wonder if the flight attendant was. I imagine my fear of public speaking melting away as I imagine my audience wearing a variety of Santa suits. I remember my late night conversations in Boardners. The creativity people expressed in their holiday costumes.

And here it is. One of my own 10 to the 9s.

I don't even know who I impersonally impacted. And many don't even know it's me holding this moving temporary autonomous zone for Santa's Cacophony. And that's ok. Because I know by the mere fact of it existing - me helping it exist - the world has changed.

Quiet in the Morning

The sounds of the morning resemble that Pink Floyd song. An English Breakfast or something like that. Loud clicking clock in the kitchen. Sounds of making coffee. Striking the match. Pouring the water. Sitting in my living room, sunlight streaming through the window. Dog silently sleeping. My gaze wanders from spot to spot. Thoughts arise in my mind. Thoughts like ambient melodies. Fading in and then out. I breathe. I drink my coffee. I am relaxed. It's been a long time since I've woken up feeling this way. Feeling my normal usual self. It's all I want to do. To sit in the silence of my room. Morning sunlight. Drinking coffee. All quiet. No desire to put my wants and hopes and dreams on the day. Only to see what may become.

Cool Night

I've spent the day cooking. The house smells like simmering black bean chili. Spicy. Warm. The dog is sticking close to me, giving me his doggy eyes. None for you tonight little beggar. 

I made the decision to cheer the fuck up today. Enough of the doom and gloom and anger and frustration and going over the unfairness of it all in my mind. Hey - I don't live in those realities anymore. That's the past, biotches. Let it go. Never have to interact with those people again, so quit going back.

It got pretty bad. (I'm sure it will get bad again.) It didn't help that I got the triple, 1-2-3 punch. All while shifting my stability to a new paradigm. I wanted to finish my commitment, then disengage to heal the massive trauma I had sustained. Only that was when the biggest blow was delivered. Yeah, it took the heathervescent down. Down into some really dark places. It's a miracle I'm here. In some realities, I am no longer experiencing time/space. I had completed all I was to do. But that is not this one. Blood remains flowing in my veins.

You know what world, don't make me go through that fucking shit again - at least not without an army behind me. OK? Got it? I'll do a lot of crappy work, and I'll persevere, but don't put me in a situation were so called allies stab me in the fucking back and sabotage my work, ok. And while I'm dictating to you the future I will no longer tolerate - no bullshit politics either. I know you're eating their souls for dinner, but you know, I'd really prefer to not interact with them. Life is too short to weigh myself down. We got a lot to do here and I'm not the one staying home watching Roku looking for a comfortable life. Strengths Finder remember. I'm here to kick ass. Not play political games and live a comfortable life.

But enough about that. I was really writing to you, to tell you of the sight in the sky.

Mr Dog and I went out for the evening walk. It's winter in Los Angeles. Cool. Means I have to wear a jacket. The air is moist - cool like the marine layer. Overcast sky, just a few clouds twinkling through. 

The full moon rises through the illuminated slate grey sky. I love a full misty Los Angeles Moon. Silhouetted Palm Trees. A slight breeze. Twinkling. I made out a moving grey image in the sky. A slight flashing. It was the blimp. It floated like a gentle beast in the air. Grey on grey illuminated by misted moonlight. Helicopters flashed their red and white lights; complimenting the stars that poked through the night clouds. 

There are others walking at night. I am one of them. One of many living in this city of dreams. Breathing in this air. Walking these streets. I need no validation to be here. This is my city. We feed each other. We are one exploring this reality, what could be and what will never become.

On these misty nights, I am reminded of the veil of this city. It you are loyal or even if you are lucky, you will see through the veil, the ocean mist, the overcast moonlit night - and you will see dreams. And if you are skilled, you can pull that dream possibility back with you, as you walk along the street with your dog, and you can make it real.

Breakfast in Bed

As I've mentioned, Mom was a flight attendant. That meant she was gone from home a lot, but home a lot too. One of my favorite things to do was to make her breakfast in bed. On a Saturday morning, my brother and I would get up early and Mom would still be sleeping. (She might have gotten home late at night or maybe at 6am that morning.)

I'd enlist my brother in the kitchen to help. Mom had this great wicker bed table and I would lay a full First Class breakfast for her complete with linens, multiple pieces of silverware for the courses and a fresh rose from the garden. The menu was usually some melon, scrambled cheese eggs (a family favorite), maybe a piece of bacon or sausage, some toast or a fresh scratch baked biscuit. (I was quite a cook back then - as I am now.)

We'd open the curtains. I might have gotten my brother to take the tray into mom and we'd jump into bed with her with our own plates. I always made too much food for her. In retrospect she was probably pretty jetlagged.  But who can complain when your two blonde kids come in with a full breakfast tray. We were happy to see her.

Chad and I found that wicker breakfast tray in her garage a few weeks ago. I pulled it down and talked about it. He didn't want it, so that's one thing that's coming back to LA with me. 

It's a bittersweet memory for me. It's one of the things I did for my mom, because I wanted her to have that experience. Partly I wanted her to give her that experience, because that was the experience I myself wanted to have. It's going to be a bittersweet memory, because if I want that tray filled with breakfast again. I will probably have to do it. Instead of the experience of receiving it.

 

 

Update on Mom, Me

It's been a week and a half without Mom. She passed rather quickly. Talk about exponential change.  I wrote a blog post on her blog a week or so ago to tell her friends there. 

I haven't really felt like talking about it much. Some days I feel like I am doing ok. Then the next thing I know, I'm hit with some emotion. Sadness, weirdness, anger.  Crying. Just par for the course.

I've been distracting myself with launching my latest film. With Los Angeles Santacon. With Stanislav Lem. With School. 

I've been spending a lot of time with my brother and his family. Me and Aedyn, my nephew, are great pals. (We're building on the great Thanksgiving lego experience.) It's healing.

I miss my dog. I miss Los Angeles tree lined streets. I miss some fucking stability.

The Time is Now

If you are going to love me

Love me now, while I can know

The sweet and tender feelings

Which from true affections flow

Love me while I am living

Don't wait until I am gone

And then have it chiseled in marble

Sweet words on ice-cold stone

 

If you have tender thoughts of me

Please tell me now

If you wait until I am sleeping

Never to awaken

There will be death between us

And I won't hear you then

So if you love me even a little bit

Let me know it while I am living

So I can know and treasure it.

- Unknown, found in my mom's important papers

Anti-Fragility, take 2

Anti-fragility, coined by N. Taleb, is the concept that some things benefit from bumpy, chaotic shocks.  

I've written about my theory tying Fragility/Efficiency, Resilence and Anti-Fragility before. Driving around lost in the construction filled, closed freeway ramp and slow driving cars of Portland, a new example of anti-fragility showed itself to me: being lost.

To be efficient, to know the best routes at various times - one must experiment, explore, fail, be frustrated, get lost in the streets of a city only partially known. 

When we talk about progress, results and success, you've got the best shot for certain high results when playing in the efficient/fragile bucket. That's where the 10 steps to X, 5 best practices for N, Timothy Ferris recipes for optimization fall. You can follow those recipes, but even then success isn't guaranteed. It's just a recipe that has worked for someone else.

Anti-fragility is the space of wildcards and emergence. Sure you can win big, but you can also completely fail. And there's a lot more failure than success. (Actually, to be honest, the values of fail/succeed are not applicable in this bucket - except they are used by people from the efficient/resilient value set.) But when you're trying to create this kind of space in your organization, most upper management expects some kind of solid results.

Enter Resilience. 

A middle ground. Resilience has solid results. It's optimized for values of stability, consistency and certainty. Which perhaps isn't very optimized. Like jello, or silly putty it's about returning to a stable state. The known. Certainty.

It's moving between all 3 that is interesting. Sure you can hang out/prefer one of those buckets. Many ideas/concepts/companies/products/industries move through all of these. 

 

The Tarot Drome

A dank london tunnel. Moisture and crumbling stone walls. A Luchadore wrestling ring. I felt right at home.

The Mistress of Ceremonies enters the ring. Two cards are displayed. My throat chokes. Hot tears run down my cheeks. It's my situation exactly. (What I have started to refer as "Hogtied across the Atlantic"). She had me at Jodorosky. 

I find myself in a dream. I'm experiencing these things I am desperate to experience - the experiences I create for others - I'm in it now. It's not Alice in Wonderland - it's a segment of the Holy Mountain. I'm delighted, inspired, fully conscious in the moment.

I learn from the embodied cards. Ephiphanies. Understanding. Richer than I could have dreamed. Ending in a spectacle on roller skates.  This was exactly where I was suposed to be. This was exactly what I was suppose to experience. I leave the experience changed.

Words

One long present moment, dream flowing into dream.

Saragossa.

"The impossible is only temporary." says Muhammad Ali

I'm reminded of my catalyst activity.

Only this catalyst bleeds.

Drop by drop, remembering. 

A full red robust glass.

Drained over conversation.

I think of Redwood trees. Past companies.

Past lives.

Past adventures. 

Past moments, feed into present interpretations. Perception.

Projecting.

The Future.

The possible.

The impossible.

They are just moments.

Present moment, unfolding dream.

Strange Day

I breath. I do push-ups. I drive all over the Valley running errands. I'm holding it in. Distracting myself with errands for Sunday's production. I walk the dog. I give away a burning man ticket to a good friend. I'm asked for advice and I give it. I pay attention, which allows me to help my neighbor locate her lost friend (she was talking on the cell phone when I passed her walking the dog). I try not to think. I try not to freak out. About budgets. About life. I fail.

I look at my todo list. I eat home made cobbler and talk with a good friend. We both have fucked up relationships, fucked up lives we're managing. Not that the advice we give each other makes much a difference. We live our lives. We're both somewhat successful by normal standards, but not enough for either of us. We're ambitious I guess.

I search book titles on Amazon. I read about chemicals on Wikipedia. I've taken a sudden interest in psychology. Today's research obsession was passive-aggressiveness. I'm reading about topics I never gave one thought about. I was amused for hours by this site. One person once tried to tell me I was passive aggressive. She was wrong, I'm not passive at all. I made a decision when I was about 7 that I would never be passive.

I compose blog posts in my head; that I will probably never write. At least not this year. I have blog posts in my head from 15 years ago. Someday I'll tell those stories. (Someday I'll weave the one where I wasn't fucking the startup founder into one of these posts.) All this shit is material for the writer, I remind myself. Looking for the gems I can take with me. But living has lost its luster.

I listen to Steely Dan. I vacillate about Burning Man. I sleep. That's about the only thing I look forward to these days. The morning always brings my favorite coffee. Then it's back to breathing. Inhale. Exhale.

Chopping wood, carrying water.

Down

Limits pushed.
Hopes dashed.

Doing the right thing.
Only makes you a better person. (which makes everyone else worse.)

Making the world better.
Makes your experience of the world worse.

Because it falls short.
Of all expectations. 

It takes a lot of energy to create positive futures. It takes more energy to be positive than the negative. I'm lucky, I have a lot of energy available. I've cultivated it in myself. I know where to go to get it externally. But sometimes, all the energy in the world can't help me be positive. Like I've felt the past several weeks.

You see, there's this side to me. That few people see. That I don't let many people see. Because it is ugly and full of hate and anger. It is the part of me invoked when I'm fucked over again, when I'm stabbed in the back again, when I'm betrayed again, when my ideas are stolen again, when despite all the good I've done in the world, it's pain for the heathervescent again. 

I've been reading a lot of the Tao Te Ching lately. It's about the only thing that keeps me from slitting my wrists these days.

The Master has no mind of her own.
She works with the mind of the people.

She is good to people who are good.  
She is also good to people who aren't good.
This is true goodness.

She trusts people who are trustworthy.
She also trusts people who aren't trustworthy.
This is true trust.

This kind of sentiment crushes the Old Heathervescent. I mean, does it make you inspired to continue living with 99% of fucked up humanity? It does not inspire me. 

Yes, yes, I know, there is the good, the evolved, the beautiful in this world. Oh, believe me, I know about it. But sometimes, like now, all the beauty in the world doesn't matter.

Behind my positive futures is a raging hatred for the current reality. For the small-minded limited thinking of our race. I don't think we can evolve as a species fast enough. I, myself, can not wait to escape.

Lane splitting the Big Rigs

It's the Bay Area, 2003, I'm riding my second bike, a Honda Nighthawk, 750 ccs on 880, 280, across the Bay Bridge. I was trying to kill myself. My life meant nothing to me. I was at the edge. I had been pushed to the edge. 

A particularily rough commute. A very slow merge, car commuters, big rigs, and me, a suicidal lane splitter. I had years of lane splitting, but I always respected the big rigs, gave them room, dared not engage with them. Not that day. I zipped at reckless speeds between the hulking, slow moving transporters, one on each side, sometimes just one between the long line of cars.

The thrill I got, a tiny fly, weaving in the space between, could be smashed at any time. I still respected those big rigs, but I was a different animal. I was fast, nimble, efficient on a different scale. I used the space those big rigs couldn't. Audacious. Zoom, zoom.

This memory recently asserted itself. And while I haven't lane split on a motorycle in many years, I still identify with that past self. I'm still metaphorically lane splitting the big rigs.

Playing A Role

I've felt like my life has recently been a play and replay of this scene. 

Regardless of my evolution, enlightenment, self-awareness, following the path makes my heart raw. Well, if I'm doing it right, my heart is raw. It's a roundtrip from consciousness/awareness ("pure being") to shitty humanity/day to day drama.

But that's ok. Because that's what this life is. A game, a jungle gym, for flexing, building and using muscles, knowledge, information. I'll play my role. I'll provoke. I'll allow myself to be stabbed, show the vulnerable underbelly. (Sometimes I'm the one wielding the ax that cuts forever.) Because I gain valuable information with each "role" "experience". I chose to consciously create my life. I'm here, in these places, playing these roles for a reason - and that reason is partly mine, but also for others...

In the end, evolution. Opening possibilities. Choice. Be-ing.

Que Saudade and the Problema com Succeso

Note: This post was written, but not published, when I was in Rio de Janeiro.

I walk these city street at home as in Los Angeles. I love the black and white mosaics, the moist air, the breeze, the grand mountains of rock, the ocean waves. The language returns to my tongue, unspoken for over a decade. Its sounds are hot and salty on my lips, I twist the words improperly, with my american "soutake" and mis-conjugated verbos. But my passion is there.

I had forgetten. How could I have forgotten? Forgotten the joy, to forget the longing.

--

Walking back after midnight from the Copacabana night market, I decided to pass by a certain corner I had written up in my Rio de Janeiro guidebook 12 years ago. It was across the street from my beachfront apartment. It had a cool little bar and boteco. Imagine my shock! when I saw the tiny local place with barely 6 seats had quadrupled in squarefootage becoming a pizzeria. Taking over the little bar with the Marlene Dietrich shrine. Bright lights.

My heart died. I thought... I did this. I personally contributed to this reality.

God DAMN, Heather! You did not THINK of the impact of putting these things into a popular guidebook! I kept walking into Ipanema, beating myself up for my lack of consciousness, for my inability to see this possibility 12 years ago. I kept thinking about success and failure. Which was worse? Wondering how and when things happened. Did the bar owner sell out and start a new bar elsewhere (quietly)? Obviously the botequim was doing well, they had expanded. The business was good. I suppose that was good - for the business.

But still... as I walked the empty after midnight streets in Ipanema, a single woman, alone, wearing platform fluevogs, wondering what I would find in the shadows, realizing I had nothing to fear, because I was one of them.

The Stars My Destination

"I took. I went and took. What did I leave in return? My change."

Tornado powered me 15 thousand miles. Across the great plains into the concrete jungles of New York. Across the North Atlantic to European countryside with fields, cows and wind power windmills. Skirting the edge of Europe and Africa before traversing the Atlantic once more, to the Southern Hemisphere to a favorite dream land. 

In darkness I landed. I remembered my first (terrified) time in this airport almost 20 years earlier. Different this time. No fear walking the Copacabana midnight streets. In Rio the tornado changed, shifted, transformed. A phoenix rose from the tornado calm: a blue stone wrapped in silver gold, etched with a symbol. Symbols.

The tornado powered me once more; from the South American Atlantic to the Pacific. Walking the streets of Lima with a friend, a one who is unlike any other, crystallized the fate of the tornado. Transformation, but not death. A symbol, for one and many, appeared in the calm center.

It's this symbol I returned with to Los Angeles. A symbol Los Angeles is most know for. Full circle perfection. 

Grounded as the Earth

Every solid handhold I created the past 5 years has shifted.  So far, I've traveled almost 60k miles this year, my preferred tool has been broken/in for repair for 2 1/2 months and I just moved (it only took me 3 1/2 months to do it). (There are other, larger shifts, not mentioned here too.) 

Needless to say, I have felt a bit unsettled. I needed to find a sense of "grounding." Stability. But, I was rarely home. I spend more time with my suitcase than I do with my dog.  I'm in an airplane a LOT. My feet are barely on the ground. 

So I embarked on a thought experiment. I started with a vision of grounding. I thought of tree roots in the earth. A vertical grounding, so the tree could grow, strong yet flexible in the winds of change. But this concept of roots wasn't working for me. 

Then I started thinking about the earth. What's the earth grounded to/with? Nothing? It's a sphere hanging in space. The earth has no "roots." It lays on nothing. I envisioned the solar system, the planets - all wondering what how they were "grounded". In nothing? Spinning? Then I saw the earth is "rooted" in its core.

I thought about this.  I liked that. Seemed to make sense. But how to translate this concept to moi, human? My core is not not a physical core, although it comes with me where ever I go. Part body, part mind, part something else. It's the part of me that rocked a 2 week trip after my computer died on the airplane (and proceeded to give 2 presentations with temporary tools). This combination of self, part personal identity, part body, part mind, part online connectivity. It's where and what I'm rooted in as I physically move around this globe.

Shouting at the Childless

I was at my favorite bakery a few weeks ago. My European travels gave me a hankering for fresh croissants back at home and I knew just the place. I was up early - thanks again to the jetlag - so pup and I piled in the car - a quick stop before a Hollywood hike.

I knew exactly what I wanted. A latte and a croissant. Simple. My typical European breakfast. When I opened the bakery door, it was children chaos and cacophony. Overwhelmed mom in front of me with two misbehaving kids running around causing all havoc and hell. I waited patiently. I was in no hurry. Fully present, thankful I was not the mom of two misbehaving children. Asking the counter attendant question after question about which pastry had which filling. Unable to remember any answer. Frazzeled she was. I shifted slightly and a strange type of calm settled over me. (Or perhaps I settled into a strange type of calm amidst the storm.) I was amused watching the scene. Detached. Knowing soon I would be pulled into the clusterfuck. Despite mom's vacillation, another person came to take my order, and that's when I was sucked in. (O Calm Center of the Tornado can not hold for Long. A Ying/Yang / I <3 Huckabees red ball head bashing moment of sublimity.)

It was like in a dream; you are speaking, the words go through molasses before they reach the other person's ear, letters jumbled up in the hearing no matter how much enunciation. It was the interference of the childrens cacophony. They distracted all, but me. As I intended my order they twisted and misunderstood in the most sublime telephone game way. Through the cacophony, I remained calm - I take no pleasure in this momentary ability to remain in the eye of the storm - I work hard to sustain it when I am lucky enough to find it.

Childrens strollers were strewed throughout the aisle. When I got to the register, to my dismay, my order was incorrect! My amusement rose at the level of sheer fucked-up-ness occurring. Me to blame for the misunderstood order! Me to blame for no place to stand because of the cacophony of children and unaware parents. Me to blame because the food has to get out and I am in their way (not the two strollers or multitudes of running children and parents lost in their keeing up with the jones conversations). Losing it to the only adult waiting patiently consciously (and with judgement only after the fact) for their latte and croissant!  Register person screwing up the order one final time just for good measure!

O.M.F.G. It was like the Bermuda Triangle of Bakery experiences. I had to get out of there.

Sometimes that happens. The person with extra mental bandwidth becomes the target. Amusing it can be, just don't get sucked in.

NorCal vs SoCal

Anyone who's lived in the Bay Area for a significant amount of time has come across the huge (one-sided) NorCal-SoCal rivalry.

From the San Francisco Bay Area perspective, Los Angeles is the ground zero of shallow consumerism - fake fake fake. People. Boobs. Personality. And the traffic?!?! We all know how horribly polluting cars are, those horrible horrible Los Angeles people - don't they know what they are doing to the earth? (This was before the Prius.) NorCal would expound on how much more aware they were, more evolved, aware, of the earth, good food, real sustainable businesses. There was no fakeness here in NorCal! We reveled in our "coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco" foggy summers. Fuck the tourists expecting typical California (SoCal) sunny beaches. Bwahahah - go buy those sweatshirts to stay warm! Oozing with self-importance. Oozing with I am better than you.

From the SoCal side, the rivalry is .... *poof* what rivalry? Yeah, some people up there have a chip on their shoulder, but that's their issue. It's great down here. Great weather, lots of space and so much going on! Yeah, people think Hollywood's the big industry here, but there's so much more.

The NorCal SoCal rivalry was one-sided. I stopped caring about the haters up north and instead set about to make my dreams come true.

Regardless of where you live that's good advice. Stop caring about the haters and make your dreams come true.

The Global Now

The Global Now is a term I use to describe

• the mental awareness of the global world
• the various time zones - envisioning the dark, light, sunrise, sunset, noontime meal, midnight mysteries - of places around the world
• my colleagues, friends, family, dog, my beloved Queen of Angeles in their current timespace
• and the varied activities: working, play, sleeping, eating of above around the world

While being aware of my individual, personal, immediately direct experience. 

It's viewing my life from a global perspective while holding/experiencing my individual context.

Let me give you a few examples:

Early Morning Los Angeles

When I travel to Europe my workday is through the quiet hours of the California night. Right as my mind is waking up (even if my body has acclimated to the time zone), tuned to the rhythms of Los Angeles, I finish my European workday. Before closing down my laptop, collecting my electricity adapter and hailing my taxi to the hotel, one last check of twitter.... an early morning tweet from LAFD - Los Angeles Fire Department talking about a morning cup of coffee. Physically 5500+ miles away, in a instant my mind is right there, on Robertson or Santa Monica or Wilshire Blvd in the pre-dawn darkness. #theglobalnow

Innotribe Week: San Francisco, Singapore, London

A few weeks ago Innotribe hosted events in San Francisco, Singapore, Bangkok and London within a day of each other. I kicked off the week with our Future of Money panel with Yobie from Citi, Paul from Barclays, Shamir from Simple and Michael Michael from Burning Man. Tweets and Instagram pictures went out with the #innotribe tag. Just as we finished a celebratory conference dinner, the Singapore Startup Challenge kicked off with tweets from Matteo and Nektarios and my APAC colleagues. I raised a gin and tonic to them as the sun rode West, heading to bed before the winner was announced. Later, the sun rose on London and #innotribe represented at our business forum panel.

All around the globe, as time flowed, the world turned, I saw my colleagues and I - tiny moments on the crust of this earth, a globe hanging in the universe. Pinpricks of light, stars in the world. #theglobalnow

#FutrChat

Once a month, the Association of Professional Futurists holds a chat on twitter. It's about a specific topic: the future of ----. For that one hour, colleagues from the APF get on twitter: DC, Kansas City, Florida, Seattle, Texas, Sydney, Hawaii, London and beyond... a firehose of rapid fire conversation. Intimate, public. I imagine the usernames, my colleagues, collaborators, all over the world, with each tweet, at their computer or device tuning into our shared time-space on the internet - one hour - we come together in a timeless, locationless space. We are together in conversation. #theglobalnow

White Lilacs & European Introspections

Mr Great Great Great Grandfather Schlegel left the motherland in the mid-1800s. After 15 years traveling the frontier territories, he settled in Iowa. Lost connection with the old country, building a new legacy, a family, a law practice in a new country. A wild untamed country. 

During my last trip over here (to Europe where I sit typing this), I chatted with a colleague. He mentioned he had family in America. Someone from the family generations ago crossed the great water, went to the wild land - but they lost touch. They never knew what became of them.

I never thought of it from the other side. That there is some Schlegel family here in Europe, that might occasionally think about my great great great grandfather Schlegel who left and was never heard from again. I wonder if they wonder; Did he die, merely survive, start a thriving legacy? And as far as me and my name? Who did I come from? I have the same name as a minor philosopher, but whether I am related by blood or similar interest in romantic poetry, I will never know.

--

As I drive these European roads, motorways, almost literal cow paths, through small towns and fields, shifting up and down the gears, I am reminded of the midwest. It's as if I am visiting an alternate universe. I can see why so many Europeans settled there (in the midwest). The fertile fields.  The forests. The animals. It is familiar, the lush land. 

I can see the attraction. I can see what was brought - ideas, hard work, beliefs, traditions. And I see how those were changed by the wide, open land. Big sky. Possibilities. The farther West, the more the change. I guess that makes sense... you'd have to give up a lot (and want to give it up) the farther you moved West. The land is RAW. It is unworked by human hands. It is land on a geographic scale. No forests or fields, this is rock and water, the elements and geology.

Everything is easy here - in Europe. Things are well made. Well crafted. Attention to detail. Sophisticated. Expensive (but only comparatively to the cheap Chinese production). Quality. Artisanial. There are years upon years upon years of civilization to stand upon. Build upon. Then there's also all the baggage that comes along with years of civilization. Reinvention, I think, is difficult. In some ways I think it's easier to be who you are, but I don't know that it would be easy to change the image once decided upon. But life is easy here. Comfortable. The land does not challenge. The land has been tamed. 

The thing that strikes me the strongest is society - human society - civilization. People have lived together in close quarters and cultivated the land here - much much longer than America. There's been time to refine things - including how to socially interact - learn to live with others in such close quarters. Other places in the world have experienced this longer - China, India - but I do not yet know these places.

It should be no surprise that we're rawer in America. We've only had 600 or so years (of development of the dominant society - please realize I am leaving out a huge hole of Native American Society, but that culture has unfortunately not significantly influened mainstream Americanism.) There's more physical space, so people spread out - because there is space to spread out. Survivors had to be resilient and independent - especially if you moved West of the Mississippi. Risk takers with nothing to lose. Kansas City was the last bastion of back water culture until San Francisco. Kansas City has more fountains than Venice.

I think about the people who came, and still come to my country. It attracts not a race, an ethnicity - but a way of thinking about the world. It attracts an attitude. The farther West you go, the more intense this attitude, until you reach California. It has a reputation for a reason. It is, I think, the metaphorical edge of this world. It is the place you go to invent, reinvent. It is here, in my city of Angels, I honed my ability to pluck possibilities, pull them through the fine mesh of imagination and manifest them physically. 

With every trip away from her, I bring a piece with me - this skill to pluck the possibilities, to enable a new view, invention, reinvention, seeding her beyond the deserts.

 --

A week or so ago, I remembered the white lilacs of my childhood. Lilacs were/are my favorite flower, and they were familiar in the town I grew up in. I loved the deep purple ones and also the white ones... because who called a white flower lilac? (Even as a child I loved contradictions.)

As I drove down Highway 1 from San Francisco last week, I thought about white lilacs. They just popped into my head. It had been decades since I had seen a white lilac, let alone think about them. Lilacs do not grow in California, except in some of the colder mountain regions. And every lilac I have seen in California has been light purple... or lilac. 

But today, as I explored these Belgium country roads along the roadside were bush after bush of lilacs - not the light purple ones, but the white and dark psychedelic purples one. Strange synchronicity, this memory of white lilacs... or perhaps it was just the whisper of my ghost?

Snapshots of Home

I cracked the largest grin of my trip when I saw the Virgin Atlantic flight sign showing destination: Los Angeles. LAX. What have I become? This trip convinced me, that while the world is a grand and interesting place, I live in the best place in the world. I don't want to move to Austin, or Portland, become an expat or become a global nomad. Right here in West Hollywood. Dreams are created and realized. 

--

It's the smell of LAX: jetfuel and airplane exhaust. I've told my seatmate, a Brit who is coming for a Hollywood gig, "In LA, anything can happen. Your dreams can come true. That's what's amazing about this place. You _can_ stay," I say to his desire to find more work after his short-term gig, "but the trick is give yourself no option to go back." It's step 4, Burn Your Ships.  He's off on an amazing adventure to explore the City of Angeles. I am excited for him.

--

Up, early morning. Everything is quiet. The dog, the boyf are asleep. I take the truck and drive the city streets. In search of half and half and breakfast provisions. I step outside. The air is chilly. But there's an undertone of warmth. Then I breathe deep. It hits me, the messages traveling my nervous system from my nostrils, lungs to my brain, exploding into meaning. The smell of Los Angeles. Moisture. Cool. Undertone of desert heat. The edge of possibilities. 

Sun rising upon the Hollywood Hills. 

--

So many choices. The aisles are stacked with boxes, products being unloaded. I admired the branding, the perforations to unpackage individual packaged entrees. I had never thought about the wholesale and shipping side. I see the choice. Such variety. I think, this is an upside of the free market. Such selection. It's kind of amazing.

I get into a conversation with a shop stocker. He talks to me in Spanish, I hesitate and reply. My brain is a scramble with languages. I realize I'm much more comfortable speaking bad Spanish than French. 

I come across a display of Avocados. It's like I've found the city of gold. I restrain myself from kneeling in worship to selecting a few for breakfast. Then there are strawberries from Salinas, I imagine the fields, rows of short green clumps up north. I know I'm romanticizing, but what can you expect? I'm an unapologetic Angelino.

I am so happy to be home. I've missed my city.

European Fields

I was having one of those days. A day when I was in no mood to deal with people. Didn't want to talk to them, didn't want to see them, didn't want to be around them. I have been fairly lucky to set up my life such that when I have one of these days I sequester myself in my office with my dog. I don't like feeling this way and I don't like inflicting a cranky, negative Heather on the world. I gotta keep up my, I am so awesome, invincible, rah-rah-rah personal brand, you know on the blog, ya know!

So anyway, after an awesome day of London shopping, I had to cram everything into my suitcases (which I barely fit stuff into), then lug all this LUGgage off to the train station to catch the high speed Eurostar to the continent. When I arrived, the train station was a madhouse. Crazy lines, people cutting in line, rolling these huge suitcases everywhere, people bumping into each other, no awareness of space and people behind them. For 3 seconds my blood boiled and then I looked around. There was nothing to do.

I watched the guy in front of me become red-faced with his wife and two kids. They had waited until the last  minute to get to the station. I watched him try to bully the woman keeping order among the chaos into letting him cut in line. Her response was pure pleasure, straight British to the point. Unbudging. The Europeans sure can talk straight. (How refreshing!)

Finally I'm on the train. (All my luggage lugging reminds me of a train ride 20+ years ago with my Mom and Grandmother. Between us, we had 7 huge pieces! And all this, before roller bags.) I'm engrossed with my latest iphone app purchase, zoning out to my downtempo mix. Across the aisle from me is a family - I think they are Americans. But I'm not feeling chatty. (Come to think of it, until the conference call this afternoon, it had been more than a week since I've heard an American accent. Even the English non-native speakers speak that damn British English!) American family is crashed out across the tables. It's a bright sunny English afternoon. Which means the sun is rising over the US. Jetlag. I wonder if they are from Austin, California, New York, Colorado - the time zones in my phone. 

I'm watching the countryside. It looks strangely familiar. (More on that later.) We cross under the Channel, then we're in Calais for a short stop. Sleeping family starts awake... the teenage son is dragging his heels... almost wanting to go back to sleep. I'm watching detachedly. There is one bag they missed. I call out, but the teenage son is intent on getting off the train. I jump up, grab the bag from under the table and run down the aisle. The family is off the train and down the platform. I wonder if I can catch them before the train leaves. But the train attendant sees me (running down the aisle) - understands - and takes the bag from my hand at the train door. She calls out to the family and they turn, return and get the bag from her. I see their sighs of relief as I return to my seat at the window.

That would have really sucked, hm? Leaving your bag on the train. Who knew what important things, money, passport, clothes, phone, were in it. Hours of heartache, frustration and anxiety - the possibility evaporating in a moment. Along with my cranky mood. I was left only with a feeling of relief and the view of European fields, wind turbines spinning, black and white cows frolicking and another day living.

Foreign / Not Foreign

I had a strange realization just as my Virgin Atlantic flight took off from Los Angeles bound to London last week. I was listening to the directions - all in that lovely internationally sounding female British voice. I overheard my fellow passengers chatting - most in that British accent. Flight attendants also all in that British accent. Finally, the captain came on and welcomed everyone on the flight that would take them ... "home."

Home?!?! What shock then! Los Angeles is my home! From my perspective, this flight is taking me away from home!

That's when the epiphany came. _I_ was the one with the accent. I was the foreigner. 

--

As I've walked these London streets this past week. Managed my jetlag (brilliantly, I might add), met with people, had conversations, eat, go to the office, go to stores - all the normal everyday things I might do at home, I've been aware of my foreigner status. I've made no effort to try to blend in. I've made no effort to change my LA (recently strongly influenced by Texas) style. I'll bet, I'm the only person walking around the London Bank district in black cowboy boots. They're just my favorite pair of shoes at the moment and I couldn't bear to not bring them with me. 

What fun is it being a foreigner if the whole time I'm trying to fit in - trying to smooth over my standing-out? Squashing my California expression? Does a rock star change their style when they are traveling to fit into the local look? I don't think so.

The point of all this a awareness. The conscious choice to stay attuned to my culture, while in another culture. This goes for corporate culture too. 

--

When I send emails from my corporate account, the British English spellcheck always catches specific words, trying to convert them into their British spelling. This is a strange thing for me - because for some words, I already use the British spelling (thank you International Flight Attendant Mom). But for others, I use the "American" English and refuse to change the spelling. 

It was a cute thing at first... and it's certainly helping me learn differences between American and British English. But if I ever start saying/using "maths", will you please shoot me with my own gun?

--

When I was a teenager, "banished" to grow up in Iowa - the great plains - the MidWest - farm country; I used to entertain myself in the afternoons by driving the open roads. I'd spend hours exploring gravel roads, barely paved paths, of course at as high speeds as I could push my teenager-safe car to go - I would listen to new-wave rock and think about other places. Exotic, cultured, foreign places. Places like Europe, Africa, India, South America.

One day it hit me (after I had returned from six months in Brazil, so full of saudade I could explode) - this place I lived in - where I freely drove to Hell and back. Down to the Mississippi on a midnight lark. Racing trains, kicking up dust on gravel roads, triumphantly stopped on the bridge overpass, waving as the train passed under. Hiking old Indian paths in the forest, barely visible, picnics in old horse thief caves (long since collapsed). These "boring" "normal" "unexotic" places to me - were to someone else ... quite exotic. And these were grand adventures. 

--

It's about perspective. Where you stand when you look. Isn't that magic? That the same object, the same experience, the same thing... can be interpreted dramatically differently?

Who can say, which perspective is "right" or "correct" - rather than "is."

The Montessori Smile

As I was packing some of my favorite books today (faerie tales, Italio Calvino, Brothers Grimm), I wondered what my first social experiment was. As I flipped back through my memories I came to 3 year old Heather. I went to a Montessori school just down the block. I was bored, having already finished the assignments - I had too much energy - my teachers didn't know what to do with me.  

It was picture day. They lined us up. As I stood there, waiting for other kids to get in place, settle down, they said they would take three pictures. Bored, waiting there, I wondered how I could know which picture they would use. There was no way I could know this now, before the fact, or during the picture taking, but I could do something that would tell me which picture they used in retrospect. I decided to make three faces. Then I could remember the order, thus knowing which one they used. Ready for the first shot, I made my big usual smile. Second time, a slight smile, Mona Lisa style. Third shot I went full emo frown. (I wanted faces that didn't look like I was making faces.) 

When the picture came back, I was disappointed with the choice but I knew which one they used. It was the third one. Of course, then I wanted to know what criteria they used for their selection. 

It's probably not my first social experiement, but it's the one I thought of today.

The Present vs The Future

Eckhart Tolle's work and the concept of being present has come up in my network from several places recently. For several weeks, I've been percolating upon my issues with this work, trying to reconcile my negative associations with it - while practicing and living in the present moment - something I have spent years doing with various successes. I wondered, why does something about his work rub me the wrong way, while I generally agree and practice the concept?

It's important to note that I've spent years business/life planning as well as professional training to be a futurist (using scientific and creative methods to explore future possibilities).

And I've spent more than three decades understanding, decoding and reprogramming my own programming.

Here's the rub. It's not either/or. It's not a choice between the intertwined past, the present or the future. One must move fluidly between these states; mining, acting, learning and creating.

I should be honest here, my intention is not to live a life of happiness, to get my needs met, gain power or money. My intention is to consciously be - create who I want to be/am. Which is both creation and be-ing. It's a "goal" that is never met, always met, never changing, always evolving.

The present moment is about action (or inaction). It's where the shit happens (GTD baby!). It's the moving spark in time of manifestation, creation, action, re-action. It's where choice occurs. It's where one can jump from one quantum branched reality to another. (Which I have done upon numerous occasions.)

But how does one decide how or what one wants to act, or call in the programming (e.g re-act)? Is there is a preferred branch to jump into? How does one know what to look for? To read the signs? To understand the impact, the ripple of one's actions? In the pregnant present - a moment just barely into the future.

One decides how one wants to consciously act by mining the past and visiting/seeing future possibilities/implications.

Of course, it's not as simple in practice. 

Living solely in the present is as much a trap as living in the past or dreaming always about the future. 

Tolle's work, and the mantra to be present in the present moment is too simplistic for me. It's missing a magical world of manifesting, creating the world, creating the future (for accurate work once must know the past). I'm not saying, don't live in the present moment - but to live in the conscious present - you must regularly visit the past and the future.

The Invisible Arts

I lose myself to find myself. 

I'm assaulted by the smell of raw fish and grey shrimp. Cartons of Chinese vegetables, prickly Durian, fat fuscha Dragon Fruit. I navigate the streets full of people. Stopping to peruse the red envelopes and knock off bags. Wandering these small streets, comfortable in my illiteracy.

In the park, my eye is drawn to the Tai Chi practitioners. I don't know the specific series, but I know similar ones from years of warrior practice. Watching them push and pull with energetic tension makes me long for my martial weapons. I continue to watch them and observe they are plucking the strings of energy, pushing and pulling, creating an invisible work of art. It comforts me. Seeing them paint and play and pluck the energy, seeing each series of movements creating a work of art. The body a paintbrush, the painting invisible. 

It's the same with song. There are several groups playing music. I'm loitering near one. I imagine they get together every Saturday to play and sing together in this park. Friends stop and say hello, embrace between stanzas. I'm seeing the invisible. Hearing the song, seeing the relationship interactions, the Tai Chi series paintings.

I am a similar artist. This body, these hands are the paintbrush; my ephemeral, transient life, the painting. A work of art created in/with time - moment by moment.

 

New York Fail

I'm standing at the counter of a UPS store on Broadway crying. My dead laptop in one hand, my phone in the other. What was to be the triumphant sending of my Thinkpad to Lenovo for repair was complete and crushing failure. (This was plan D going into action, after the failure of plan A, B and C.)

Simply, the required packing materials were not at this UPS Store - or any other store in Manhattan either. And no one - not the clerks behind the desk or the UPS Customer Service Rep on the phone could tell me how I find a store with the required packing materials, other than individually calling each store (of which I did call 7 with failure).

In desperation, I called Lenovo and asked them if I could send the machine (aka my other brain) in other packing materials - but No, that would void the warranty. I was completely crushed. I hated this city and all it's people - their unwilling, inability to solve this problem. And that's when I realized what I hate about New York - it's the people - the attitude - this culture. 

Not friendly, not willing to help someone out. Seemingly only in it for themselves, hyper competitive. Ready (and willing) to fuck you over, cheat you, mercilessly watch as you crumble offering no assistance what so ever, no help. What an archaic paradigm.

What the fuck New York? It's not about the competition. You've got it wrong. 

"The battle is not here with your fellow men, but out there, in Infinity."

We can do so much more together.

The World I want to Live in

Feeling beaten down by a stressful week, I am reminded of the reasons I do these things.

"You don't do them for money or fame or because it's easy. You do these things because that's the world you want to live in." - Jean Poulet

I want to live in a world where people think outside the box to solve problems beyond the standard procedure. I want to live in a world where someone can have rockstar hair in traditional business environment. I want to live in a world where granddaughters send their grandmothers flowers - every month. I want to live in a world where people make amazing experiences for other people. I want to live in a world that evolves down a pathway that increases possibilities. I want to live in a world where people are aware of the ripple of their influence on others and themselves. I want a world aware.

I create this world I want to live in - bittersweetly, even if I rarely get to experience it. 

Creating the world you want to live in is a hard task. The status quo beats and attacks and shuts you down. Sometimes breaks you. But there is always another day, another attempt to create this world anew.

Giving other people (who are mere reflections of myself) the experiences I desperately crave.